Activist approaches human rights body to protect interests of Nirbhaya convicts, their families

An activist on Monday approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) seeking its intervention to ensure that the human rights of the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case convicts and their families are not violated.

The activist, A Rajarajan, had earlier approached Delhi High Court in the matter.

Rajarajan also made representation regarding his petition before the NHRC and alleged that omission on the part of concerned authorities to execute the death sentence as per law was also an injustice from the perspective of the victims' families.

The petition alleged that the omission and commissions on part of concerned authorities from initiating the execution proceedings according to their whims and fancies and thereby keeping the four convicts under constant fear of life threat coupled with allegations of physical torture would have caused untold mental agony, distress to the convicts and may affect the mental stability of the convicts.

It said that the act of keeping the convicts in solitary confinement and constant fear of death and proceeding with the execution procedures were apparent violations of fundamental and human rights of the convicts.

Delhi High Court had on March 4 asked the activist, who sought an inquiry and report on the health of convicts, to approach the NHRC.

This comes as the four convicts in the 2012 case -- Vinay, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Mukesh Singh -- are scheduled to be hanged at 5:30 am on March 20.

The four convicts were sentenced to death by a trial court, a decision which was upheld by Delhi High Court and Supreme Court, for the gang-rape and brutalizing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.